The white community-based recycling bins have been fixtures around Oahu, mostly on school campuses, for decades, and the Honolulu City Council seems to be having a problem letting them go.

The administration of Mayor Peter Carlisle has noted the declining volume of recyclable materials routinely left in the bins, ever since the city’s curbside recycling collections went into effect, and has come to the correct conclusion: Continuing the city’s substantial subsidy for this program no longer makes sense. That’s why Carlisle’s staff planned to end the $1.5 million annual contract, currently held by Honolulu Disposal Co., to manage the program, and eliminated program funding in its budget.

By all accounts, that is what the administration still intends, despite a vote by the Council last week to extend the program and to include $2.4 million in the city’s $1.96 billion budget. Spokesman Markus Owens of the Department of Environmental Services said it still plans to close out the program as scheduled by the end of the month.

On balance that is the most sensible course of action. The purpose of a taxpayer-funded subsidy when the program was first launched about 20 years ago was to help ensure costs were covered and enable schools to receive a cut of the proceeds in exchange for hosting the bins. It was all about nurturing the development of a recycling habit, and evidence suggests it succeeded, at least in part.

But then city officials realized that convenience was paramount in cultivating the habit, and curbside recycling was rolled out to maximize that factor. While there is room for improvement, the amount of recyclables diverted from the landfill has risen sharply, largely because of residents’ use of the curbside blue bins. There seems little reason for the city to continue to underwrite the precursor; those funds might be better used for enabling more condominiums, which use private hauling companies, to create their own recycling programs.

That said, there remains some need for a limited community recycling collection while the city moves toward the next phase of its curbside program. Suzanne Jones, the city’s recycling coordinator, said 160,000 Oahu residents now have curbside recycling, but 20,000 more single-family homes are on streets too narrow for the current process. The city plans a pilot program this year to bring curbside collections to these areas, too, starting on the North Shore.

But it will take time to work out the details — how trucks could be adapted and crew protocols changed, and how routes would be structured. Clearly, the neighbors in these areas should have at least some option for recycling. The contractor executives have said that they intend to keep about half of the bins on school campuses; if the company keeps all the proceeds, the program can sustain itself.

Some way should be found to give the public access to at least a selection of these bins. Perhaps such a plan will emerge from city administration discussions reportedly going on this week.

Participation in curbside collections should be made possible for all residents of single-family homes in a few years; that clearly is the next phase of Oahu’s recycling efforts, not a full-scale return to the introductory initiative of past decades. Transitions can be bumpy, but some fairly easy steps can be taken to smooth those out here.